It has often been desirable, if not necessary, to bring feeding bottles, cups, toys, books, and the like when traveling with children. For example, when traveling with children in a motor vehicle, the children have frequently asked the driver to hand the children one or more of such articles. This has not only posed an inconvenience to the driver, but has also proven to create potentially hazardous conditions, as the driver has had to reach into the rearward portions of the vehicle while driving. Further, the articles have frequently become loose within the cabin of the vehicle, rolling around and becoming not only potentially dangerous impediments to the driver's ability to properly control the vehicle but projectiles in the event of a sudden stop or accident.
Some prior storage devices for use with a vehicle seat have generally included a storage device with a storage container, such as a bag or pouch, that has had to be attached to a structural feature of a front seat within the vehicle. Such storage devices have been designed to store telecommunications equipment, such as the storage device disclosed by Dillion, Jr. et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,229. Unfortunately, such a storage device was impractical for use with a child safety seat. The Dillion, Jr. device necessitated mechanical fastening members to secure the device with a seat frame, beneath the seat cushion. Another previously described storage device for use in a vehicle included a saddle bag that was hung over the back of the vehicle seat, as taught by Greaves, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,979,098, and Bibb et al., in U.S. Patent Publication No. US 2007/0018487. However, these devices were also impractical for use with a child's safety seat as they were designed to hang from the top portion of the back support of a chair, disposing the pocket behind the seat. In another described method of use, the pocket was suspended from the chair, behind the legs of the individual seated in the chair. Such positioning of the storage pocket would not have been accessible to a child seated in a child's safety seat, with its restraining straps secured across the front of the child.
Other prior storage devices for use with child safety seats have included devices that were attached beneath the cushion of an arm rest on the safety seat, such as disclosed by Kain, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,467,839 and 5,615,925. However, these designs required specific coupling features formed into the frame of the seat that engaged specific mounting features on the storage devices. As such, the devices were not universally useable with a wide array of child's safety seats. Other designs, taught by Fair, in U.S. Patent Publication No. US 2006/0049674, and Tipton, in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0200169, positioned mounting platforms of the storage devices between the safety seat and a vehicle seat on which the safety seat was positioned. As such, the storage devices were not easily or practically removed from, or engaged with, the child's safety seat without first disengaging the child's safety seat from the vehicle seat. Additional, storage devices have been presented for use with for use with an umbrella stroller that included an organizing apparatus, which hung over a back member of the stroller, such as that disclosed by Makoski, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,168. However, this device was secured with straps to the frame of the stroller so that the storage pockets hung from the top portion of the stroller, behind the seat. Such a device was not reasonably useable with a child's safety seat.